MacOldie is off to Australia next week and a lot of thought has gone into feeding the data habit while out there. Roaming charges are much higher outside Europe, so it is not a good idea to turn on data roaming on the iPhone. Nor is it viable to use the Vodafone 3G data card when outside Europe. These days, with our ueber-reliance on data, it can be a big (and expensive) problem. Vodafone Australia has come to the rescue with an AUS$99 data package of 3G modem and SIM card enabled for 1GB of data. A further gigabyte costs $29 but probably will not be necessary. The obligatory Vodafone modem is superfluous because the SIM will work in our MiFi personal wifi gadget. Nevertheless, it's part of the package and can be given away. This tiny MiFi unit will provide wifi everywhere for both laptop and iPhone. Crucially, too, it powers Skype for calls to landlines and mobiles, thus cutting down the call-roaming charges from O2. It will be interesting to see how this fix works out in the field. Financially it is a much better solution that taking an international roaming package from Vodafone or O2 in the UK. Watch this space.
